Burning Bridges
by Ace Trainer Ritchie
Summary: Congratulations, Shinya, you got a better brother. A much better brother. Just be careful to deal with the left over one.
1. Pyromania

Shinya didn't know what to wish for. A better brother was up there in his mind but he figured that was rude, despite Takuya not getting him a gift. However, the candles were melting and their wax was almost dripping into the cake. It was just centimeters away from touching the icing so he just wished for a generic good year and blew out his candles. It wasn't like these wishes were going to come true. He was nine, and even he knew that. Even if he did wish for a better brother, it wasn't going to happen.

The candles got removed before the wax fell down to the icing, and his parents cut the cake into pieces to share amongst everyone.

"Hey Shinya," Takuya said, pulling him closer. "I don't have a physical present for you but you can play whatever game you want today and I won't bother you at all."

Shinya smiled. Maybe he should've wished for a better brother, then he could say his birthday wish actually came true. To be honest, if he had the opportunity to make any wish of his come true, even if it was just on a certain day and one wish, he would take it. That wish would always be having a better brother-

One who actually loved him.

"Thanks, Takuya," he responded as he took bite of his cake. To be honest, he was disappointed in gift he got, but it was Takuya - what did he expect. So he gave a big grin after he finished his bite and that seemed to suffice for Takuya.

"No problem!"

* * *

Half an hour later, Takuya went out again.

Shinya noted this as he booted up his favorite game, the puzzle game that Takuya always hated. Was he feeling bad about not getting Shinya a physical present? Shinya wasn't exactly greedy, but a new game would be... nice, after all, whenever it was Takuya's birthday he did his best to save his allowance to get him an actual gift. So it was only fair if the _older brother_ brought him a gift for once.

Really, he should've wished for a better brother. He wanted to see how the Wish gods actually managed to change Takuya.

It took about twenty minutes for Takuya to return, bag in hand.

"Whatcha got there?" Shinya asked. _Better be a present for me_ , he thought.

"Uh, some candles? And matches… Scented candles, don't worry," he said, his gaze towards the floor. He never looked to Shinya. He automatically chalked it up to his idiot brother not understanding how socializing worked, but then something hit him. Those items weren't normal. Takuya wouldn't buy candles.

Was he trying to hide something?

Or maybe he got into interior decorating and decided he needed candles for that.

Whatever, he might as well drop it. It wasn't like Takuya was going to do anything bad with these candles.

Although adding on the scented part _was_ weird.

"I won't tell mom, go decorate your room however, I guess."

"Thanks!"

He immediately rushed upstairs, probably to his room to decorate it with candles. Shinya shrugged and went back to his game. He was getting bored of it, but this was the only time he could freely play it. He might as well beat the story mode for a second time. It was too bad the puzzles were getting too easy for him.

* * *

"Takuya! Mom said I can get a new game for my birthday as long as we both agree on it, is it okay if we get a puzzle game?" Shinya said, loud enough for his mom to hear him just to make sure she couldn't pull that trick of asking a Takuya who didn't know what was going on and taking away his game. Assuming Takuya was probably extremely busy… reorganizing his room with candles. _Yeah that isn't normal,_ he thought and he got up from his position on the floor and went up to his room.

"Takuya?"

The door was ajar. Shinya completely disregarded privacy and opened the door some more so he could get a better view. He didn't exactly know what to think about what was going on. The room smelled, not strongly, but enough for Shinya to recognize the smell of fire. This in and of itself would've been normal… if scented candles had a smell different from normal candles. But this didn't smell like a scent, just burning candles. Then, once he got over the candle smell, he realized that they were scattered there on the floor and in Takuya's hand, fully lit and ablaze. It was also _extremely_ close to his hand. one wrong move and it could easy burn Takuya. One wrong move-...

Shinya immediately moved back from the door, mortified, hoping calling for Takuya didn't startle him. One wrong move could just as well be disastrous.

Sure, Takuya was an annoying brother, but he didn't want him to get hurt because of burns that Shinya caused.

However, Takuya seemed to have completely disregarded everything that was going on. Instead, he purposely dropped the candle and the flame hit his hand. There was no scream. In fact, Shinya never heard screaming at all. That wasn't human. The human body responds to pain.

For some reason, he was fascinated, but in that terrified way.

Shinya kept watch as Takuya lit a match. He didn't bother to take the extra step to light a candle. He held the flame to his hand once again. He pressed it to his skin for as long as he could before he was forced to remove the match due to the pain Shinya assumed he was in. But that was for… for far too long. Takuya flinched a little, but he managed to maintain the match for far too long.

Then he turned around, presumably to look at the mess he made but his eyes locked with Shinya's.

"Shinya!"

He moved back from the door. "I...I didn't see anything."

Such lies, such bold lies. He watched the whole thing like a trainwreck you just couldn't take your eyes off of.

"Shinya, what do you want?" he asked, picking up the candles and arranging them in some kind of symbol. But he did so frantically like his momentum was disturbed. "I'm busy."

"Mom said I could buy a game for my birthday but we had to both decide on it."

"Puzzle game, right? Go buy it, I don't care. Just go leave me alone."

He did and he closed the door on a Takuya who was probably going to kill himself.

 _Was that really okay?_ he asked himself. He walked down the stairs to find his mom, who was most likely out back in the garden. He left his brother to go harm himself some more with fire. Last he checked, that was not okay with most people. He should've said something. Like: "Don't play with fire," or "Don't die".

He wished he had asked for a better brother, a sane one. He was starting to feel like the video game present was an excuse for him to go off somewhere and play with fire.

Oh god, it didn't just _feel_ like that. It was exactly what it was.

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

How was he going to get his brother back?

 _Take back my initial wish, Wish gods. I just want my brother back._

He snuck a bit of cake to make it more complete before his mom took him out to buy a game.

 **Chapter 1 End: Pyromania**


	2. Meetings

It was three in the afternoon and Shinya whizzed past his parent's room, only to stop at Takuya's room because he heard his brother talk. He wasn't exactly one for eavesdropping however, after yesterday he was afraid for his brother. He was afraid for the brother who thought that playing with fire was something he should do. No, more than playing with fire. He was _burning himself_ and acting like it was perfectly normal.

Obviously, he didn't want anything to happen to him. Even though he was pretty annoying. He figured in this situation he might as well play the role of an older brother.

His original plan, however, was not to spy on Takuya. It was to continue playing the new game he got, as he only got to level two before he got booted off the TV and had to go up to his room. It would've made a good distraction from that nearly suffocating smell. The worry on his face as Takuya dropped the fire onto his hands. The fact that Takuya seemed _fine_ , looked fine, acted fine, acted like it was a little ember that licked him instead of a full flame. That wasn't normal and Shinya was too have to deal with this.

But he heard Takuya talking. Words that made no sense. Words that were words but put together, well, they weren't exactly phrases.

Which made him worry again.

"Guys, we're still connected to our spirits!" Takuya said in a muffled voice. Shinya sat down right next to the door, wanting to catch all of this.

Another voice Shinya didn't recognized spoke. It was a high pitched voice, but not female. It was masculine and almost his age. It sounded his age, at least. "We are?" the voice said and then he continued. "But how? We aren't in the digital world."

 _Digital world? What's, when did…? The computer world? Like, the inside of a computer or a TV? Is that what they meant by a digital world?_

"Oh Shinya," his mom said, as she came up from downstairs. "Hey! Takuya has company over, so get away from his door. And stop eavesdropping, thought you knew better than that."

Shinya tilted his head. He knew his brother. He didn't have friends.

"I said stop, now go downstairs."

Shinya got up from his seat on the floor and went downstairs, tripping on nothing and falling down. Someone he didn't recognize was downstairs on their couch.

"Are you okay?" he asked.

Shinya rubbed the back of his head in response. He wasn't, but he was too embarrassed to admit so. How stupid were you that you misstepped and fell that badly in your own house?

"Who are you?" he opted for instead, getting off of the ground and walking over to the couch.

"Yukata Himi, the older brother of your brother's friend."

"Okay…"

So, why was he down here and not upstairs?

He said nothing of the sort though, and Shinya plopped himself onto the couch, staring at him intently. "Why are you here?" he asked, hoping that Yukata would actually answer.

"This was the first time Tomoki's been invited to anyone's house. Our mom wanted to make sure he was in the house with someone to watch over him."

That made sense. Shinya didn't think much of it. Instead he got up from the couch and went for the TV. He turned it on and booting up his puzzle game.

"Wait, kid, what's your name?"

"Shinya Kanbara."

That was the last of their interaction for a bit. Yukata just watched Shinya play his game and occasionally went on his phone, while Shinya played his puzzle game until got bored.

He laid on the floor, bored because the only other game he had was the boring one and he wouldn't dare touch Takuya's games. Plus he wanted to talk to someone about _it_ , but he technically saw nothing. What the heck was up with it? Takuya, playing with fire and all… That wasn't in any part of his hobbies. And why on his birthday?

Since when did he have friends?

He got off the floor and stared at Yukata. He wanted to ask him a question, but the teen was on his phone, probably texting someone. Shinya had learned not to bother someone while they were on the phone.

"Since when have your brother and mine been friends?" he said to no one in particular, still mindlessly doodling.

Yukata shifted his weight in the chair, almost as if he was moving his body to better answer Shinya, but he assumed it was just to be comfortable.

"I don't know. He never talked about a Takuya beforehand."

"I dunno either then. Takuya never had friends."

Shinya turned around, just in time for him to see Yukata raise an eyebrow. He put down his phone and folded his hands, almost like he was thinking. Okay, he was probably thinking. Because this was odd, very odd.

Since when did Takuya get the ability to make friends so quickly?

Yukata went back to his phone by the time Shinya turned back around, most definitely done with the idea that his brother had friends. So Shinya turned around again, his face a little red from staring at Yukata a lot, booting up his game again and mull over the events of yesterday. Also from today.

Because Shinya didn't expect Takuya to hurt himself and yet still have friends. And mention a digital world. Shinya always figured he wasn't interested in things like that, so hearing Takuya having a discussion about that, now that was odd.

"Hey, a digital world refers to a computer or something like that, right? Like the life you live inside of a computer, or something like that, right?"

"I guess? Either that or the term is referring to digital space. Although, we don't let Tomoki us the computer."

"We don't have one either."

But as Yukata seemed to process that information, the group came downstairs. It was an odd group, that was for sure. There was a kid with a hat the size of a mushroom but with the coloring of a pumpkin who's eyes immediately darted towards Yukata. Shinya assumed this was Tomoki and turned back to the kid in a blue jumpsuit with brown hair.

That jumpsuit kid was next to a girl with blonde hair and a crop top. She was then followed by a boy with a bandana and long dark blue hair, whose outfit was composed of mainly dark blues and yellows. Right behind him was Takuya, his hands in his standard gloves but Shinya could see the bandages poking out from them. He was the only one of them that was hurt.

"I have to go," Yukata said, walking up to his brother and grabbing him by the hand. They were the first to walk out of the door, followed by the blonde and the jumpsuit guy. The ponytail guy lingered a bit longer, staring at Shinya a little bit as he talked to Takuya about something Shinya couldn't make out, but after about five minutes he left, and Takuya turned around to face Shinya.

"When did you make all those friends?" he asked, curious. That was the fullest their house has ever been, because Shinya only brought along one or two friends, not four plus one's older brother. And immediately, in a day, Takuya brought home double what Shinya does, and for what? How?

 _We aren't in the digital world._

Those words rang through his head. Digital world. It was confirmed by Yukata that the digital world refers to the life one could lead inside of the computer, but in no way Takuya could have gotten access to a computer.

Takuya shrugged and walked up the stairs. Shinya sighed, and let his question out.

"Where were you yesterday?"

 **Chapter 2 End: Meetings**


	3. Sneaks

"Where were you yesterday?" Shinya asked, his eyes piercing through Takuya who was walking up the stairs to go to his room.

"I told you, to buy candles."

"Before that."

He shifted his weight. He was nervous, it seemed. "Nowhere," he responded after about two minutes of contemplating. That was too long. What the heck, Takuya?

Shinya wanted to ask about the sudden appearance of friends, but Takuya bolted up the stairs. He nearly decided on following him, but decided not to because he knew he was only going to get the response of "Get out of my room, Shinya" from Takuya.

Instead he waited half an hour, passing the time by playing his new game, and "headed up" to his room, hoping that Takuya's door remained ajar.

And it was, he noticed as he passed by. Idiot. Instead of opening the door some more to gawk, he left it as it was, peering inside to see Takuya doing the same exact thing as he did last night, only with candle wax. He let the wax drip down onto his hand and kept letting it do so regardless of how hot melting wax was. He did this for about five drops before he had to pull his hand away and shake off the heat.

"Damnit, why can't I withstand heat that well?" he asked to no one in particular.

What the hell was wrong with him?

Shinya walked past his room once he realized that all Takuya was doing was that. He had some morbid curiosity as to what he was doing, but he didn't want to risk getting caught.

-0-0-0-

The next day Takuya ran out to the store once again, and Shinya took that as an opportunity to snoop around in his room. Just for five minutes, because he didn't know how long he would be out for, so he set a timer on his phone for exactly five minutes.

Setting the phone on the ground, Shinya walked into Takuya's room, which immediately smelled like burning candle wax and fire. There were scorch marks on the ground and the walls. Used candles and matches lined the floor, and on his desk was some sort of shrine.

Shinya walked towards the shrine. There were four candles, two on each side. In the middle were ashes. Did someone die? Or were these just, Shinya shuddered at the thought. The room thankfully didn't smell like burnt skin, but imagining these ashes were his brother's burnt skin - now that was a sad sad thought.

His phone buzzed, alerting him that his five minutes were up. He was tempted due to morbid curiosity to take another five minutes, but he didn't want Takuya to walk into him snooping around in his room and have this one outlet be taken away from him.

But as he took his phone from the door and left it the way that Takuya had left it, Shinya slowly realized that Takuya was different. Completely different. He was gone for thirty minutes and suddenly, well suddenly he was reserved and obsessed with fire. Which was never Takuya. He never cared much for fire. No, he was just a normal brother that just had no friends and cared for himself more than he did for other people. Nothing out of the ordinary. But now? Who could say they had a fire obsessed brother?

That was not normal at all.

And how was it so that he finally got friends once he was weirder? There was something about the digital world… did he go to the library? No, he was Takuya, he didn't read. So unless he had a card just to use the computers… that was something he had to research. But he was too young and couldn't go by himself. And if his mom accompanied him, well that would be fine, but most likely she would make Takuya go with him. Because that's what older brothers do.

-0-0-0-

Takuya returned home an hour later.

"Where were you?" Shinya asked, curious.

"Listen, you don't need to know my business, so can you please stop asking me these questions?"

He could very easily play the mom card and get Takuya in trouble, but he decided not to. Instead he watched Takuya walk up the stairs

"Mom!" Shinya yelled, and she called back from her room. He saw Takuya tense up, possibly wishing that that he didn't just now say that. "Can I go to the library?" he finished, and he saw Takuya sigh with relief as he finished going up the stairs.

"Can't Takuya take you?" she asked.

"Mom, I'm busy!" Takuya said.

"Birthday present, older brother."

"I gave it to you already."

"Compared to what I gave you? Pay up."

"Fine." He immediately went back down the stairs, and Shinya half expected him to mumble "But I was just there," and yet he didn't. He just put on his shoes, motioned for an in awe Shinya to follow, and then walked out the door.

When they reached the library, Takuya stayed by the door, saying how he didn't exactly like the library all that much - almost ruling out the library theory Shinya had, only he realized he could've very easily not wanted to come back here again because his friends weren't there. Although it wouldn't make sense why he had them at his house once… but whatever, that didn't matter.

He almost headed up to his section when he saw a certain brown haired teen sitting down with a book. Yukata.

Shinya toyed with the idea of asking if his brother did anything weird as well, before heading up to the children's section. There probably was nothing to ask…

 _Dummy! Ask the darn question._ he thought to himself, and he rushed back down the stairs, hoping that Yukata didn't happen to leave in the seconds it took for Shinya to make up his mind.

"Yukata, hey, I have a weird question for you," he asked while playing with his thumbs once he got to the desk Yukata was reading at.

"Hm?" He looked up from his book, and said a little remark once he realized who it was. "What do you want?"

"Is Tomoki… obsessed with something weird?"

"That's none of your business."

"Okay…" And he moved backwards, walking towards the stairs towards his section.

It probably only was Takuya.

 **Chapter 3 End: Sneaks**


	4. Scared

Shinya took out one book not to look suspicious to Takuya, since he did say he wanted to go to the library, and he knew his brother was going to get mad at him if he didn't take out at least one book. So he grabbed the first book he saw that was a decent length (so he could justify why he took out only one book) and checked it out. He met up with Takuya, who wasn't intending to have a conversation with him.

Shinya, on the other hand, was.

"Hey, remember how you said you'd be a better brother?"

Takuya blanked on his answer. He did respond, thankfully, but it took him a bit. A little bit of fumbling, some blank stares. He wasn't himself at all.

"You saying I'm _not_ a good brother?"

"Well, I kinda figured you would... actually talk to me."

Those words obviously stung. Takuya stopped walking, and then in over dramatic fashion he fell to the ground in a way that a dead person would drop to the ground. And for once in these past couple of days, Shinya laughed. It was a small chuckle, but something to be cherished. Takuya's been odd lately, and he needed something to remind him that hey, his brother was a normal brother, and he loved him.

"How dare you. My heart, it cannot… go on…"

"Takuya, people are watching," Shinya said, his eyes darting to the people that actually were staring at the two of them. He wish they weren't though. Couldn't they see he was having a brotherly moment for once? Couldn't they realize that this wasn't normal and that Shinya was actually _enjoying_ this?

"I don't care, go on without me."

Shinya broke out into a fit of laughter.

* * *

Shinya's fire obsessed brother retired to his room, probably tired from going out twice. Shinya didn't mind this, Takuya was probably new to socializing. He could use a break or two. Whatever. It just meant that it was time for him to read that book he picked on a whim, which was actually a good book.

It was a book about this girl whose parents were captured by this evil dude, who was planning on sucking the happiness from them since they were such a happy family. So she teamed up another kid who's got the same problem only to find out that their parents actually enjoyed it. Okay, he didn't get that far into the story in such a small amount of time, but the back of the book kind of spoiled him on that.

The book was so good that he almost forgot about his fire obsessed brother and what he could be doing. Almost.

Picking himself off from the floor he decided it would be better to read this in bed. And of course to get to his room he had to pass by Takuya's room. And no one would mind if he just took a little peak at what he was doing.

No one but Takuya, of course, but he didn't have to know.

So he walked up the stairs and slowly passed Takuya's room. And he was on the phone of all things.

"I think we can go to the digital world," he said, his voice kind of hushed but that terrible hushed voice that allows you to still hear it. "We can withstand our elements, that has to mean something."

A pause. Whoever he was talking to obviously was responding. But there was an odd amount of silence. Normally Takuya would be chatting away, his words suffocating you until you mention "Hey, maybe shut up," but not this time. He was quiet, his words gave you time to breathe which they almost never did.

And then there were footsteps. Shinya matched them with his own and walked towards his room and peaked his head out. Takuya just merely closed the door, but he definitely would've caught Shinya had he lingered at the door.

So he flopped on his bed, the green covers absorbing his weight and almost consuming him. Looking up at the beige walls he wondered, what even was this digital world? First guess was computers, because Yutaka confirmed that for him. But then visiting and elements got thrown into the mix, and that made everything all the more confusing. Withstand what elements? The natural ones that he learned about in school? Was that why his brother was so fire obsessed?

He shook it off. Nothing made sense, nothing ever made sense. And he technically came up here to read his book, so he decided it was better for him to read.

The main protagonist just met her partner, a boy whose only caretaker got taken away from him, and they were just now discussing how to break into the headquarters of the main villain, despite not even knowing where that was. Which Shinya found weird, but whatever. They wanted to save their parents, let them save their parents.

 _I wanna save Takuya._

He didn't know where that thought came from, it just appeared. Wanting to save his brother? From what? The scars he might have but refused to share? His room? His fire obsessed tendencies?

And then, he realized. The digital world wasn't some kind of computer world. It was something dangerous. Something his brother was sucked into.

Maybe it was a cult, like the villain in his book was organizing.

"Takuya, I'm scared."


	5. Plans

"What do you think you're doing?" Yutaka Himi said in the doorway of his younger brother, Tomoki Himi, who was in a room of freezing temperatures in the middle of spring holding ice cubes.

"N-nothing."

"Obviously you aren't doing nothing," he said, moving into the room. He wanted to know if Tomoki was freezing. "You've been uncharastically quiet so I just wanted to make sure if you were okay, but then I see you doing this!"

 _Has Tomoki been obsessed with anything weird?_

Those words from Shinya still rang true in his ears, and he wish they didn't. When he asked that question Yutaka immediately responded, because A) that was none of his business and B) Tomoki was normal. Well, okay, not normal. He's been quiet, but he still came down to be a demanding little brat sometimes, but to a lesser extent, almost like he learned. Yutaka did not think that deciding to be freezing cold was what he did when he was holed up in his room.

"Look at you, you're freezing!"

"No I'm not!" Tomoki protested despite the fact that Yutaka had his hands on Tomoki's arm, which was freezing cold because of how just damn cold it was in the room. But he wasn't sneezing, like Yutaka was holding back the urge to do. His nose wasn't even running like it did when he cried. He seemed fine for some reason. Tomoki was okay in this weather.

"Yes you are," Yutaka said, and at this point he wasn't sure what was going to happen first - the ice cubes in his hand melting completely in this room's environment or Tomoki actually admitting to be cold.

"That doesn't matter!" And Tomoki wangled his arm free from Yutaka's rather light grasp, and shifted the ice cubes to his other hand. "By the way, Takuya invited me over to his house again, and I need to go."

"Not unless you don't tell me what you were doing." Goddamnit he wanted answers from this kid. Nothing added up, nothing made sense. What kind of kid would be obsessed with the cold so much that he willingly subjected himself to the freezing cold?

"Nothing."

"This is definitely _not_ nothing."

"Okay fine," Tomoki said with a huff. He really didn't want to share that information. No duh, he kinda hated him, and that made sense. But whatever, he's finally got the information.

"I just want to know my tolerance for cold."

" _Why_?"

"Because."

And Yutaka realized that was all he was going to get out of Tomoki.

"Fine, I guess you can go to Takuya's." A cheer. _But only because I need to answer Shinya._

-0-0-0-

It just so happened to be the next day that Tomoki needed to go to the Kanbara's household, so Yutaka immediately got to see Shinya. And it was weird for a college student to be so excited about a nine year old, but there was the question of their brothers. They weren't okay. Okay, _Tomoki_ wasn't okay. Takuya could be, but based on what Shinya asked him, he wasn't okay either.

So he endured the normal "Do you want a snack? Shall I turn on the TV for you?" that Mrs. Kanbara gave him and stared blankly at his phone until Shinya came down.

"You again."

"Sorry, Tomoki's visiting." It wasn't exactly an apology, he never erased that snark of his, but it should suffice enough.

"Whatever."

And he played a video game and Yutaka looked at his phone blankly again until he decided to break the ice, shall we say.

"So recently Tomoki's been playing around with ice," he said, specifically pausing to get Shinya's attention. And it worked. The child turned around, his eyes wide as he waited for Yutaka to finish what was his open ended sentence. Someone taught this kid manners.

"And I just wanted to see, does it have anything to do with your brother? He was so adamant about coming here."

"Takuya's been playing with fire," he said in a quiet voice, like he didn't want anyone else to hear. "And his room, it smells like fire, and there's ashes. Ashes on his desk, surrounded by candles."

Yutaka was taken back by that. Ashes? Candles? What kind of eleven year old had that in their room?

"It's not normal, right? I'm scared."

"Tomoki's room is freezing cold," Yutaka said, "And it's spring, not winter. None of this is normal."

What the hell, kids.

"I'm going to get Tomoki. I don't want him to get any ideas from this."

"Okay," he responded, and he went back to his video game. Yutaka was halfway up the stairs before Shinya called out to him. "Wait, can I get your number? I don't think that… we should let this happen. I want my brother back."

He wasn't exactly sure if he should give his number to a nine year old, or heck if that nine year old even had a cellphone (Tomoki did, but that was mainly so he could at least call him to pick him up if he was stuck in a bad situation, which was almost all the time), but something came over him and he decided, why not? Takuya probably was the ringmaster of this entire plan, might as well help to have someone close to him to figure out what the hell was going on.

So he repeated his phone number for the kid to scramble to find something to write on, and once he was giving a thumbs up he went upstairs and led himself to the one closed room. He considered knocking, but there were voices.

"We're not going to the digital world. Not with Kouichi still in the digital world." Male, not Tomoki, Too deep to be Tomoki.

"Oh come on, you don't even know he's there." Female.

"Besides, can't we rescue him?" Male, higher pitched than the first one.

"Yeah, Takuya-onii-chan is right!" Tomoki. When did he get so close to to Shinya's older brother to call him his brother? He's only been friends with him for a week, but then again that little squirt would latch onto anyone who gave him attention.

The room was quiet, and Yutaka considered busting in and getting Tomoki but he was curious. Saving someone? Digital world? By his logic, the digital world would probably mean the same as digital space, the area inside of a device like a TV for example. So how could a human, assuming this Kouichi was human, be trapped in such space? It was physically impossible to get in there, unless one was talking science fiction.

"I just don't want to see him die again."

Okay, Yutaka wasn't one to shelter Tomoki from concepts like death, but watching someone die in real life? Having seen that? Dealing with someone's trauma of watching a person die if Tomoki himself never saw this person die? Tomoki was _nine_ , he was too young to deal with trauma.

Slamming open the door, which got the reaction of everyone in the room, Yutaka stepped into the room.

"You should really lock the doors," said the one in the jumpsuit.

"My door doesn't have a lock!" said the one Yutaka could only believe to be Takuya, as the resemblance to Shinya was striking.

"Tomoki, we're going," Yutaka said, and everyone turned to look at him like he was the villain.

"Onii-chan, I need to stay here," Tomoki said with those puppy eyes of his that always got his parents to do whatever he wanted them to do. Too bad they didn't work on Yutaka.

"Yeah," jumpsuit kid interjected, "Tomoki is a vital part of our plan."

"What plan?" _Your plan to bother a nine year old with your trauma?_ Granted, jumpsuit kid's voice was different level - a nice medium between Takuya and death kid's voice - but still. They were all in this. They should know better than to involve a nine year old in this.

"A plan," Takuya said, probably hoping that would get past a college student.

"Tell me or Tomoki goes home."

 **Chapter 5 End: Plans**


	6. Digital

_What's taking Yutaka so long to get his brother?_ Shinya wondered as he solved one of the bonus levels in the game he got for his birthday. He was almost done with it and already bored of it, so his mind naturally drifted to other things, like Yutaka.

The older sibling always got his way, so Yutaka had to have gotten Tomoki already. Unless Takuya was making a big deal out of nothing and delaying him. That was likely, and Shinya figured that hey, he might as well check and see what's going on.

"Yutaka?" he said, going up the flight of stairs it took to reach Takuya's room. Only, Yutaka didn't respond to him. No, Yutaka was outside the door frame that suspiciously smelled like melted candle wax and listening to kids talking.

"-so our plan! We're trying to beat this super hard video game level!" a voice that sounded like someone Shinya's age said. Tomoki?

"Yeah!" Takuya said immediately afterwards. "Kouji here is a coward and got overly attached to a character named Kouichi in this game."

"See Kouichi is a NPC that dies if you don't fight the boss in time, and well, we kinda suck at beating the boss," another voice that Shinya couldn't place said.

"So it takes all five of you to beat one game?" Yutaka said.

"Well we trade off!" This time a female voice was talking. "And no one can face this boss and get the treasure, so we're having a strategy meeting."

"And my brother playing with ice and freezing temperatures are related to this game how?"

Right, Tomoki was acting weird too. And Shinya sighed, quietly though since he wanted to pretend that no one noticed him as Takuya would definitely throw him out of the area if he knew he was up here, because he almost fell for the lie that they were playing a video game.. Takuya loved those RPGs but was terrible at them. But then he realized that Takuya's and Tomoki's habits weren't normal and this couldn't have been a strategy meeting. Even if it did properly explain the digital world he had heard before.

What it also didn't explain was a line he almost forgotten until now. "We're still connected to our spirits." That wasn't a video game.

"He's nine! Let him play with temperature," the female voice said. That was the only response the group Takuya hosted managed to give out.

"Fine, I'll let my brother be a weirdo and give himself hypothermia. How long will this so called strategy meeting take?" Yutaka clearly wasn't having anything these guys were saying.

"Thirty minutes," a kid that hadn't talked before muffled, and the others seemed to agree on it as there was no other response.

"Fine, thirty minutes. I'm coming up if it even goes a second over thirty minutes."

Turning around, Yutaka walked towards the stairs, noticing Shinya who was on the top of them. He quickly walked down to allow Yutaka to do so too before the door slammed shut.

"I could smell the ashes, I don't understand how your brother lives. Or my brother either for that matter."

Shinya shrugged as he watched Yutaka take his spot on the couch.

"So? They won't talk, our only option is eavesdropping. Unless you have any leads."

"Spirits."

"Kid, you're going to have to give me more to work with."

"I heard Takuya say that they were still connected to their spirits, and something about the digital world."

"So you think these spirits and the digital world are connected?"

Just in that moment, Shinya's mother walked into the room, carrying a tray of snacks in her hand.

"Did I hear you guys right? Digital World?"

They both nodded. Wasn't like his mom was going to give him any information, but at this point they would take anything they could get.

"Oh, that's funny, I thought that show got ago."

"Show?" Yutaka asked, sitting up from the couch. Shinya's mom set her tray down on the nearest elevated surface and sat down next to Yutaka. Shinya plopped himself on the floor right in front of the two.

"You two are too young to remember it, in fact it stopped airing while I was seven. But there was this show, god I forgot it's title, but it had something to do with a Digital World… it was something about kids going to another world? It's been so long though…"

Shinya tilted his head. That was interesting, although something more Takuya would be into. But he didn't like old shows, so he probably wouldn't have watched it.

"Was it an anime or live action?" Yutaka asked, and Shinya didn't understand why. Takuya would never be interested in something that old, and probably neither would Tomoki if he was anything like Takuya.

"Anime," she said and Yutaka immediately bolted from his seat. Grabbing onto Shinya's hand he made his way to the door, dragging a confused Shinya along.

"Wait, where are you two going?"

"To the nearest computer."

-0-0-0-

"So why did you take interest to this show?" Shinya asked as they waited for the train to take them to the nearest library. He was still confused. This was just some random trivia his mom unloaded to them, like them talking just triggered her to remember fondly of her childhood (and god he hated saying it like that, he knew there was a word for it but he just forgot it), but Yutaka seemed to have run with it.

"It's our only lead."

"No, we have the spirits, don't we? And this digital world."

"Think about it. A show with a digital world?"

"Takuya made a friend group over some old show?"

"It's real."

Shinya paused for a bit and thankfully the train came so he didn't have to think about it for that long. As he boarded, he questioned. It's real, Yutaka said. But they couldn't have been talking about the same thing, no, there's no way a TV show from that long could be relevant to them now.

"Stumped?" And Shinya nodded. None of this made sense, it was like the ultimate puzzle three grade levels too high. There was nothing giving you useful hints and the hints you got were cryptic at best.

"Okay, so this is just a small little spark in my head, but it has something to do with a digital world. To us, the digital world, well okay, to me, the digital world is just synonymous to digital space - an area where the image is projected, like where the picture on a computer is displayed. There's no way there referring to that, because it _should_ be physically impossible to get there. And while it's also physically impossible for them to be in a world made up by some TV script writers, it'll give us a better idea of how to define this digital world that they're talking about. Because then we have a basis for a world, and not just our regular definition of the word."

Some of that flew over Shinya's head, but he nodded like he understood. Because he got some of it, they were using the digital world his mother was talking about as a frame of reference.

"Good, now it's our stop."


End file.
